The Rev. Frank Saldana is in the people-changing business. His Inner-City Action and Wayside Motel ministries are dedicated to unconventional intervention in the lives of some of Stockton's mos...

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Editor's Note

The Rev. Frank Saldana is in the people-changing business.

His Inner-City Action and Wayside Motel ministries are dedicated to unconventional intervention in the lives of some of Stockton's most desperate people. Saldana, 43, is originally from Oakland, where as a young man he abused drugs and was homeless. Today, he and his wife, Kimberly, have four children, and he's an ordained minister. He became a Christian through Manteca's Christian Worship Center. His church is mobile and centered on a small bus that is used to distribute clothes to the needy. "We have a system, a family system, that is built around trust," Saldana said. "There are no rules."

Today and Wednesday, we look at two of the people he's rescued and how their lives have changed.

Coming Wednesday: Lodi's 46-year-old James Okazaki, a successful businessman with a family including three children, lost it all in a haze of crystal meth. He has started the long road back to reconciliation.

Take it one step at a time. Not 12 steps, not another program, not some giant leap into a better tomorrow. Just one step. At a time.

Two months ago, Teague was alone, cold, hungry, living on the street and hooked on crystal meth.

"I'd spent my whole life with my lips wrapped around a dope pipe," he said. "Literally, everything had gone up in smoke. Meth is such a crippling disease."

Today, Teague, 37, is clean and taking life - you've got it - one step at a time. Christmas 2012 has more meaning for him.

His journey started seven weeks ago under the Crosstown Freeway in the heart of homelessness, prostitution, crime and drug use.

Drawn by the prospect of a free meal, he stumbled onto a midday worship service with open barbecue grills, folding chairs and portable music.

It was a Thursday.

What he heard from big Frank Saldana, who preached that day, was a message of redemption. Teague showed up for a month of Thursdays and started helping out. One recent Thursday, Saldana announced he was going to take some people "back with him."

It was raining, and Teague, leaning against a freeway pillar at Lincoln and Washington streets, was crying. He wasn't fully sure what Saldana meant, but he wanted to go. He knew he had to.

"My life was miserable. I left it all under the bridge."

Saldana, a pastor, transported Teague to the Wayside Motel on the Highway 99 frontage road just north of Eight Mile Road. It was like coming home.

The aging units, small but dry and warm, are not for travelers. Saldana's ministry purchased them three years ago.

They are home to more than two dozen individuals - former drug users, alcoholics, prostitutes and homeless people - who have been rescued, many of them off the streets of downtown Stockton.

They come together in a place hard to define and even more difficult to label. It is a Christian endeavor.

"What we do is bring hope back to life," said Pastor Sarah Ayala, a full-time counselor who sold her home in Galt to work and live at the Wayside. "We try to bring peace and hope and encouragement."

She and her husband, Kino, live in one of the motel units, and, despite tight quarters, have made their residence into a worship center and compound hangout.

There are 25 residents living in the less-than-glamorous roadside apartments. Those hanging around Christmas Day will gather in the Ayalas' inviting front room. Teague will be there.

He's off meth, reusing some of the construction skills from his past and devoting himself to the Inner-City Action and Wayside ministries.

"It was divine intervention," he said.

Teague, originally from Southern California, has lived in Stockton for more than a decade. He was introduced to methamphetamine as an 11-year-old - by his father.

"I walked in on him using meth one day and, instead of kicking me out, he said, 'Hey, son, I want you to try something.' I've been struggling with that my whole life."

Before his faith-based road, Teague had been in and out of four drug programs. For the first time, he sees purpose to his life.

"There is a way out. I don't have to live like that," he said. "I wake up every day now looking for a way to give back. This is a family here, and they've given me a chance to heal."

Ayala calls Teague's turnaround remarkable.

"He was a little leery at first," she said. "But he started to see people come - and change. His heart changed. Now there's nothing he wouldn't do. There's a lot of love in him."

Teague has jumped right into the never-ending work of Inner-City Action and Wayside. He's the go-to guy on electrical, plumbing, painting and handyman projects. There's work on a makeshift chapel under way. And he's playing drums in the group's small worship band.

Teague has been in the pit of despair. Now he's working his way back up. "It's easier sliding downhill," he said. "There is so much greatness in those people under the bridge. Now, I'm part of something. I'm worth something. And I'm putting one foot in front of the other."